The reason for doing this study is to determine whether a new method of blood stem cell transplant (also known as bone marrow transplant) is able to treat acute lymphocytic leukemia. Blood stem cells are the "seed cells" necessary to make all blood cells. This new method of transplant uses a combination of low dose radiation and chemotherapy that may be less toxic and cause less harm than a conventional transplant. This lower dose transplant is called a "nonmyeloablative transplant". Researchers want to see if using less radiation and less chemotherapy combined with new immune suppressing drugs after the transplant will help a stem cell transplant to work. Researchers hope that this treatment will cure acute lymphocytic leukemia with fewer side effects. Researchers are hoping to see a mixture of recipient and donor blood cells after transplant. This mixture of donor and recipient blood cells is called "mixed chimerism". Researchers hope that donor cells will attack and eliminate the leukemia. This is called the "graft-versus-leukemia" effect. In addition, after the transplant, white blood cells from the donor may be given to enhance or "boost" the graft-versus-leukemia effect, and hopefully remove all remaining cancer cells. This study is being done because at the present time blood stem cell transplantation (or bone marrow transplantation) is the only known curative therapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia. Because of age or underlying health status acute lymphocytic leukemia patients have a higher likelihood of experiencing severe harm from a conventional blood stem cell transplant. Researchers are doing this study to see if this new nonmyeloablative method of low dose radiation and low dose chemotherapy given before transplant and immune suppressive drugs after transplant will help make the transplant safer and also cure acute lymphocytic leukemia

Incidence of relapse [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

Incidence of rejection [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

Incidence of acute grade II-IV graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and chronic GVHD, graded using a modified version of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Common Toxicity Criteria [ Time Frame: Up to 5 years ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]

I. To determine if a one-year disease-free survival (DFS) of > 25% can be achieved among adult patients with high risk acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in complete remission (CR) who undergo nonmyeloablative allografting.

II. To determine if a one-year DFS of >= 40% can be achieved among pediatric patients with high risk ALL in CR who undergo nonmyeloablative allografting.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To determine if a day +200 transplant-related mortality (TRM) of < 25% can be achieved among patients with high risk ALL in CR who undergo nonmyeloablative allografting.

II. To evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI) in the treatment of minimal residue disease (MRD) after nonmyeloablative allografting for patients with high risk ALL in CR.

OUTLINE:

NONMYELOALATIVE CONDITIONING REGIMEN: Patients receive fludarabine phosphate intravenously (IV) on days -4 to -2 and undergo total body irradiation (TBI) on day 0.

Matched for human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1 and DQB1 alleles (must be defined by high resolution typing) and

Only a single allele disparity will be allowed for HLA-A, B, or C as defined by high resolution typing

DONOR: A positive anti-donor cytotoxic crossmatch is an absolute donor exclusion; donors are excluded when preexisting immunoreactivity is identified that would jeopardize donor hematopoietic cell engraftment; this determination is based on the standard practice of the individual institution; the recommended procedure for patients with 10 of 10 HLA allele level (phenotypic) match is to obtain a panel reactive antibody (PRA) screens to class I and class II antigens for all patients before hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT); if the PRA shows > 10% activity, then flow cytometric or B and T cell cytotoxic cross matches should be obtained; the donor should be excluded if any of the cytotoxic cross match assays are positive; for those patients with an HLA class I allele mismatch, flow cytometric or B and T cell cytotoxic cross matches should be obtained regardless of the PRA results

DONOR: Patient and donor pairs homozygous at a mismatched allele are considered a two-allele mismatch, i.e., the patient is A*0101 and the donor is A*0102, and this type of mismatch is not allowed

DONOR: Donor must consent to peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) mobilization with filgrastim (G-CSF) arranged through the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) or other donor centers

Patients with clinical or laboratory evidence of liver disease would be evaluated for the cause of liver disease, its clinical severity in terms of liver function, and the degree of portal hypertension; patients will be excluded if they are found to have fulminant liver failure, cirrhosis of the liver with evidence of portal hypertension, alcoholic hepatitis, esophageal varices, a history of bleeding esophageal varices, hepatic encephalopathy, uncorrectable hepatic synthetic dysfunction evinced by prolongation of the prothrombin time, ascites related to portal hypertension, bridging fibrosis, bacterial or fungal liver abscess, biliary obstruction, chronic viral hepatitis with total serum bilirubin > 3 mg/dL, and symptomatic biliary disease

Patients with a history of non-hematologic malignancies (except non-melanoma skin cancers) currently in a complete remission, who are less than 5 years from the time of complete remission, and have a > 20% risk of disease recurrence

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00031655